


Make it to Me

by yamsfreckles



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Generally Happy Ending, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, no one dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 08:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10159382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yamsfreckles/pseuds/yamsfreckles
Summary: "Hinata Shouyou was a reckless child. Paired with being involved in soccer for most of his elementary school days, he often came home covered in bumps and bruises much to his mother’s chagrin, though luckily he usually healed quickly. Occasionally though, occasionally his bruises took a lot longer to heal. Always the darkest ones and always the ones he never remembered receiving."-Or-YamaHina Soulmate AU where whatever marks appear on your skin also show up on your Soulmate.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fic features heavily implied - by not too explicit - child physical/sexual abuse and self-harm. If you feel that might be triggering to you, please take care of yourself and tread lightly. No one dies and the ending is generally happy.
> 
> This fic was inspired by the song Make it to Me by Sam Smith.

Hinata Shouyou was a reckless child. Paired with being involved in soccer for most of his elementary school days, he often came home covered in bumps and bruises much to his mother’s chagrin, though luckily they usually healed quickly.

Occasionally though, occasionally his bruises took a lot longer to heal. Always the darkest ones and always the ones he never remembered receiving. Also, oddly enough, always the ones that never hurt. They cropped up mysteriously, ugly and dark, and Hinata would stay up late into the night, poking them, completely free of pain and trying to remember when he had received them. Usually he got bruises on his knees and elbows, places easily bruised when he fell during club activities. These though were usually scattered along his arms and sides, and occasionally his thighs.

He didn’t think too much of it. After all, he fell down a lot. He couldn’t be expected to remember how he got every bruise.

He was almost ten when he started to notice the bite marks. They appeared a lot less often than the unexplained bruises, always staying confined to his inner thighs. Those marks scared him. He knew he would be able to remember if someone had bitten him, especially in such a private place, but no one ever had.

That fear is what drove him to his mother’s bedroom door late one Friday night. She was still awake, rubbing her swollen stomach and reading a book. She was expecting Hinata’s baby sister in just a couple more weeks.

She smiled when he crawled into the bed beside her, but her smile immediately vanished when she noticed her son’s tears. Hinata showed her the freshly bruised teeth marks on his thighs and shakily told her how he had watched them form that night and how scared he was.

His mother’s eyes widened, horrified at the marks on her son’s body. She frantically checked over Hinata’s arms and legs, finding a few more forming bruises. A strangled sob escaped her lips and her hand rose up quickly to cover her mouth. She didn’t want to scare her son even more. She knew exactly what this meant.

“Shou, honey,” she whispered, trying to keep her fear out of her voice. “We’re going to go for a drive, okay sweetie?”

Hinata was scared and confused, but he trusted his mother. “Okay,” he sniffled.

He couldn’t remember much about the drive itself, but their destination was a simple building with the words “Miyagi Prefecture Police Department” written above the door, making Hinata’s fear increase. Was he in trouble? Maybe he shouldn’t have told. Maybe he should have kept it to himself.

His mother sat him down in a chair before going to speak in hushed tones to the woman at the front desk. He was able to catch little snippets of their conversation, though none of it made any sense to him.

“…are aware there is no way to tell…”  
“…taking advantage of an innocent child and I…”  
“…5%. The odds just aren’t…”  
“…talk to him and see…”

Finally their quiet conversation ended and the woman moved out from behind the desk and approached Hinata slowly. “Hello, Shouyou,” she said with a kind smile. “May I sit with you?”

Hinata hesitated, looking to his mom for help. She nodded encouragingly, so Hinata swallowed thickly and nodded his head to the woman. She maneuvered a chair and sat so that she was facing Hinata head on.

“You mother tells me you have some strange bruises,” she stated.

Hinata nodded again, a bit slower than before.

“Have they ever appeared before tonight?”

Again, Hinata nodded.

“Can you tell me about them?” she asked. “Like when did you start noticing them, and how often?”

So Hinata told her. He told her everything he could remember about the bruises and bite marks. Occasionally she would ask another clarifying question, but for the most part she just let him talk.

When he finally finished his explanation as best he could the woman patted his knee gently and thanked him before standing up and motioning for his mother to join her back at the counter.

Hinata didn’t know how much longer they talked, but he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew his mom was shaking him awake and leading him back to the car. They drove home in silence and Hinata fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

He woke up slowly the next day, the late morning Saturday sun streaming through his window.

A knock sounded at his door and his mother poked her head in. Upon noticing her son was awake, she entered the room and sat at the edge of his bed.

“Shou, I want to explain to you about the bruises, okay?”

Hinata nodded quickly. He wasn’t as scared now that it was daytime and he was anxious to finally get some answers.

“You have a Soulmate,” his mom explained. “They’re a lot less common than they used to be and few people have them anymore.”

Hinata cocked his head to the side in confusion. “What does that mean?”

His mother sighed and he noticed her fiddling with a pen in her lap. “When someone has a Soulmate, it’s like your skin is connected in a way. Whatever marks appear on your skin appear on your Soulmate’s skin as well, like writing or cuts or bruises.”

Hinata sat quietly, contemplating this new information. “So… The bruises are my Soulmate’s?” he asked.

His mother nodded sadly. “It’s a horrible, horrible thing that’s happening to your Soulmate, Shouyou. Someone is hurting them terribly and unfortunately there isn’t much we can do about it.”

Hinata furrowed his eyebrows. “Why not?”

A sad sigh escaped his mother’s lips. “There’s no way of knowing who your Soulmate is until you meet them,” she explained. She handed the pen to Hinata. “Unfortunately, if you try and write any personal information it won’t show up,” she said. “You may not be able to stop what’s happening to your Soulmate, but you can be kind, Shou. They are going to need kindness.”

She stood up and kissed his forehead before leaving him to his thoughts.

After a few minutes, Hinata cautiously shifted his pajama bottoms down his legs to survey his thighs. They were littered with dark bruises and teeth marks and Hinata poked at them out of habit. They weren’t his. They belonged to someone else. His Soulmate. He expected to feel relief, to have his fears finally laid to rest. But instead of disappearing they had simply shifted. He wasn’t afraid for himself, he was afraid for this other person.

He pulled his pants back up and stared at the pen for a long moment. Be kind. He wasn’t even ten yet and he didn’t quite grasp the severity of the situation, but he knew he could be kind. He hesitated only a moment before drawing a smiley face on the back of his left hand. His Soulmate wouldn’t be able to miss it.

*****  
The bruises and bite marks stopped showing up altogether a few months after Hinata’s little sister Natsu was born, which greatly pleased both Hinata and his mother. About once a week Hinata would draw something small and silly on his hand or palm. A flower here, a volleyball there. He never received a response, but he never got discouraged.

In his second year of middle school – about the time he started to understand exactly what had happened to his Soulmate when they were younger – the marks started appearing on his upper thighs. He wasn’t sure exactly what they were. They were small and crescent-shaped and seemed pretty deep even though he couldn’t feel them.

He continued to draw pictures for his Soulmate.

The fingernail marks – Hinata eventually realized that’s what they were when he noticed he would get similar marks on his palms when he clenched his fists too tightly – eventually turned into neat cuts, still staying confined to the tops of his thighs. These worried Hinata considerably. He was old enough to know what self-harm was, but he didn’t know how he could help his Soulmate other than by being kind.

The weekly pictures turned into daily pictures.

One night the cuts on Hinata’s thighs were deeper than usual and Hinata knew how dangerous that was. Frantically he reached for a pen. A dumb smiley face wouldn’t cut it this time. He was panicking and didn’t know what to do. He scribbled out some words onto his palm almost without thinking.

_Make it to me._

*****  
By the time his first year of high school rolled around, the cuts didn’t appear as often. They didn’t stop completely, but they weren’t an everyday occurrence anymore. The fingernail marks started to make a comeback and while any form of self-harm was terrible, Hinata much preferred them to the cuts.

It wasn’t too far into the schoolyear when Hinata found him. He had missed a spike during volleyball practice and fell to his knees hard. Of course that had to be the day he had forgotten his knee-pads at home. He grumbled to himself as he changed in the locker room after practice, seeing the new bruises blossoming on his knees. He shoved his stuff into his bag and turned to the door intent on leaving as quickly as he could so he could get home and treat his knees properly.

That’s when he noticed his teammate Yamaguchi sitting on a bench towards the back of the changing room, rubbing his knees. Hinata froze when he noticed the bruises on the other boy’s knees. Ones that were identical to his own.

It couldn’t be.

He hastily pulled a pen out of his bag and wrote quickly on his left palm.

_Hello._

It was dumb and not eloquent in the slightest, but when Yamaguchi looked at his palm and smiled, that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he could be kind to his Soulmate. He could make him smile.

Hinata took a deep breath before going and sitting next to Yamaguchi. The latter looked at him, startled. “Oh, hi Hinata,” he greeted, curiously.

Hinata smiled and held his palm out to Yamaguchi, the single word displayed for the taller boy to read clearly. "Hello, Yamaguchi."

Yamaguchi’s eyes widened slightly and he looked up, meeting Hinata’s eyes.

Hinata smiled softly, bumping Yamaguchi’s bruised knee playfully with his own.

“I’m glad you made it.”

**Author's Note:**

> You'd never know how much I actually love Yamaguchi with the way I treat him...
> 
> To clarify, since the conversation between Hinata's mom and the police officer is really fragmented, but only about 5% of people have a Soulmate in this AU and even fewer ever actually meet theirs. There was really nothing the police could do to help Yamaguchi because there was no way to know who he was.
> 
> Feel free to come say hi to me on Tumblr!~ @yamsfreckles


End file.
